For my final outcome, I envisioned a collection of oil paints. All the colours are taken from my photographs of the sky outside my window, and curated into a collection of colours that together, represent the living skies of my region.
Looking, Seeing and Capturing
In the middle of February earlier this year, I moved from a tiny apartment in central Halifax to my own home just 20 minutes outside of the city, in Prospect Bay.
Instead of a gas station parking lot full of noise, bright lights, characters and garbage, my view was now uninterrupted. Seeing the sky changing constantly from morning to night, day to day, and season to season was fascinating.
The sky was something I have never observed so fully before.
I looked back though my camera reel from the last 6 months at what I had captured so far, and with this weeks challenge in mind, looked for the most dramatic and broad range of colours the sky could offer.
I started gathering all the ranges of colours and hues I could into a document, with the goal to show the dramatic colours that are revealed without us noticing.
The sky is blue.
The sky is also orange, lilac, lapis, fuchsia, grey, white, yellow, sometimes all at once.
Some of the colours I swatched from the photographs.
When thinking of my final output - I was greatly inspired by Beam Paints, an indigenous owned and operated brand whose colours and hand crafted and thoughtfully packaged using traditional resources like birch and burlap.
Lecture and Readings
Sketchbooks, journaling, observing
I love exploring artists sketchbooks. I found them absolutely fascinating as there’s no guidelines, formats, parameters, no ego. It’s observing, practicing, experimenting, pondering, for no audience but yourself.
Seeing a peek into others creative process can inspire you to try new methods of experimentation.
I often make lists of words - a dynamic list of 20 words can equal 2,000 words of prose. They act as a catalyst to one's thoughts, a provocation of one another, if you like, notes of notes.
Below, Hockney’s sketchbook from: https://etchrlab.com/blogs/news/exploring-sketchbooks
My own sketchbook practice is currently non-existent. It’s a goal for me to start making this a part of my daily routine. I often only se my phone camera to make visual observations, so perhaps it could be an easy step to do a bit of both.